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Shiyan Hu Named Editor-In-Chief for IET Cyber-Physical Systems: Theory and Application

Published August 10, 2016

Shiyan Hu, ECE Associate Professor and Center for Cyber-Physical Systems Director

by Allison Mills
Cyber-physical systems include smart washing machines, self-driving cars, medical devices and smart grid meters. As our digital worlds become more than handheld, researchers seek to get a better understanding of the interface between cyberspace and tangible elements.

Shiyan Hu (ECE) is an expert in cyber-physical systems and cybersecurity, and is Director of Center for Cyber-Physical Systems at Michigan Tech Institute of Computer and Cybersystems. Recently, the Institute of Technology (IET) launched a new journal Cyber-Physical Systems: Theory & Application, [http://digital-library.theiet.org/content/journals/iet-cps] and appointed Hu as the founding editor-in-chief. IET is the largest engineering society in Europe with more than 180,000 members and Hu will lead a team of associate editors who are leading experts worldwide, including several from Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, University of Illinois, National Taiwan University and University of Tokyo.

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) addresses the close interactions and feedback loop between the cyber components (such as embedded sensing systems) and the physical components (such as energy systems) in a system. The exemplary CPS research topics include smart energy systems, smart home/building/community/city, connected and autonomous vehicle system, smart health, etc. This IET journal is dedicated to all aspects of the fundamental and applied research in the design, implementation and operation of CPS systems, considering performance, energy, user experience, security, reliability, fault tolerance, flexibility and extensibility. Its scope also includes innovative big data analytics for cyber-physical systems such as large-scale analytical modeling, complex stochastic optimization, statistical machine learning, formal methods and verification, and real-time intelligent control which are all critical to the success of CPS developments.

As an elected Fellow of IET, Prof. Hu leads this journal and also chairs IEEE Technical Committee on Cyber-Physical Systems (www.ieee-cps.org), an authoritative constituency overseeing all CPS related activities within IEEE. He has published more than 100 research papers (about 30 in the premier IEEE Transactions), received numerous awards recognizing his research impact to the field, and served as associate editor or guest editor for 7 IEEE/ACM Transactions. More information can be found at http://www.ece.mtu.edu/faculty/shiyan/

Burrell awarded SPIE Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship

Published July 7, 2016

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Derek Burrell (ECE) has been awarded a 2016 Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics for his potential contributions to the field of optics, photonics or related field.

Burrell is an Electrical and Computer Engineering undergraduate student at Michigan Technological University working toward a BS in electrical engineering with a concentration in photonics. He has academic and industrial experience in the fabrication and testing of optical interconnects, design of photometric simulations and creation of light-based models for virtual reality systems. His research interests include telecommunications, digital image processing and materials characterization. The scholarship will provide $3,000 toward tuition and research funding for the 2016-2017 academic year. Derek is the current president of the Michigan Technological University SPIE Student Chapter.

Burrell was also recently selected by Michigan Space Grant Consortium (MSGC) for a $2,500 research fellowship that will begin Fall 2016 and concentrate on free-space optical communications.

Derek plans to pursue an MS in optical engineering after graduation.

For more information regarding the 2016 scholarship awards see SPIE.

NSF Funding for Zhuo Feng

Published June 20, 2016

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Zhuo Feng (ECE/ICC) is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $450,000 research and development grant from the National Science Foundation. The project is “SHF: Small: Scalable Spectral Sparsification of Graph Laplacians and Integrated Circuits.”

This is a three-year project.

From Tech Today.

New Funding for Detection of Buried and Obscured Targets

Published June 9, 2016

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Timothy Havens (ECE/ICC), is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $99,779 research and development grant from the U.S. Department of Defense-Army Research Office.

Joseph Burns (MTRI) and Timothy Schulz (ECE) are co-PIs on the project “Multisensor Analysis and Algorithm Development for Detection and Classification of Buried and Obscured Targets.”

This is the first year of a potential three-year project totaling $1,066,799.

From Tech Today, by Sponsored Programs.

Kamppinen recognized for 25 years of service

Published May 23, 2016

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kamppinen_25yearsservice — President Glenn Mroz congratulates ECE’s Michele Kamppinen for 25 years of service to Michigan Tech

Annual Service Recognition Event

On Tuesday, June 14, faculty and staff members, along with their guests, gathered at the Rozsa Center lobby for the annual Staff Council Service Recognition Luncheon. Awards were presented for five-year increments of service to more than 150 staff members. A dinner for those reaching 25 years or more was held on May 11. The following ECE staff member was recognized:

25 Years
Michele Kamppinen, Staff Assistant, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Fridays with Fuhrmann: It’s a great time to be an ECE!

Published April 15, 2016

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ECE Woman of Promise, Alexis Dani, presented by ECE chair Dan Fuhrmann

Happy Tax Day everyone! Actually the real Tax Day this year isn’t until Monday, and that’s a good thing considering how busy things have been in the ECE Department this week. Here’s a little factoid I just learned this week: April 15 is the birthday of Swiss mathematician, physicist, and astronomer Leonhard Euler (1707). Everyone knows Euler’s Formula, right?

This is the time when all our seniors are wrapping up their Senior Design and Enterprise projects, and we have a lot of visitors in town to see what we are doing and to help us out with the evaluation of the projects.

The ECE External Advisory Committee, or EAC, is here for the Spring 2016 meeting. This is a group of about a dozen industry representatives, most of them Tech alumni, who visit us twice a year to help us in our quest for continuous improvement. A lot of their time in the spring meeting is devoted to judging Senior Design and Enterprise projects, which happened yesterday (Thursday April 14). We had a total of 24 projects this year, and each project team is required to present their results and field questions in a 45-minute session. All of the ECE faculty and the graduate student TAs also participated in the judging. This is a great day in the life of the ECE Department, when we get to see all the hard work of the students over four years brought to fruition. My thanks to everyone, especially the EAC, that helped make the day a success.

We concluded the day with the Senior Awards Banquet at the Memorial Union Ballroom. Here we recognize both individuals and teams for their outstanding contributions to the ECE Department.

The individual student award winners are:

ECE Woman of Promise / Martha Sloan Scholarship: Alexis Dani (pictured above)
ECE Departmental Scholar: Derek Gheller
Carl S. Schjonberg Outstanding Senior: Ian Cummings

Ian Cummings, Carl S. Schjonberg ECE Outstanding Senior

The Larry Kennedy Industry Innovation Award, the award given by the EAC to the top design project in the department, went to Senior Design Team 8, Traveling Wave Fault Location, sponsored by American Transmission Company (ATC) with faculty advisor John Lukowski.

L-R: ATC's Joe Kysely, SD8 members Jacob Marshall and Kevin Schoenknecht (Troy Johnston not pictured), SD assistant/ECE PhD student Dustin Drumm, and team advisor Prof. John Lukowski — L-R: ATC’s Joe Kysely, SD8 members Jacob Marshall and Kevin Schoenknecht (Troy Johnston not pictured), SD assistant/ECE PhD student Dustin Drumm, and team advisor Prof. John Lukowski

Finally, the Eta Kappa Nu (HKN) Professor of the Year award was given to Senior Lecture Kit Cischke. Kit teaches many of the core courses in our computer engineering program, and is the faculty advisor for the Wireless Communications Enterprise. He does a fabulous job and all the students love him. Congratulations Kit, and thanks for all you do!

Professor of the Year, Senior Lecturer Kit Cischke, presented by HKN's Matthew Andres — Professor of the Year, Senior Lecturer Kit Cischke, presented by HKN’s Matthew Andres

Earlier in the week we had a visit from another “unofficial” advisory group – a group of 5 industry leaders and entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley, led by Brocade CEO Dave House. Dave has been a very good friend of the ECE Department for many years, and in fact you may recognize his name from the professorship that I hold. Dave and company were here to advise and encourage the entire university, not just the ECE Department, on matters of innovation, entrepreneurship, and where technology is headed from their point of view. Dave has been very influential on my thinking about the importance of building closer ties among the ECE Department, the Department of Computer Science, and the School of Technology. On Tuesday I was very pleased to be able to report to the group that the performance results in the new Institute of Computing and Cybersystems, measured in new research awards, research expenditures, publications, and student support, was much higher than expected. The ICC is the most significant effort arising from the joint activity of the three units mentioned above, and so it is gratifying to see things coming together as they are.

On top of all that, we had some fantastic news from the ECE faculty this week. Assistant Professors Durdu Guney, Timothy Havens, and Chee-Wooi Ten have all been recommended by the Provost for promotion to the rank of Associate Professor, with tenure. The final vote will be taken at a meeting of the Board of Trustees in two weeks’ time. My congratulations to Durdu, Tim, and Chee-Wooi on reaching this major milestone – we expect many great things from them in the years to come.

All for now. Get those taxes in!

– Dan

Daniel R. Fuhrmann
Dave House Professor and Chair
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Michigan Technological University

We Inspire wins Highest Growth Potential Award

Published April 12, 2016

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newventurecompetition2016 — BSEE senior Arick Davis (3rd from left)

Two student teams from Michigan Tech each brought home $10,000 or more in venture funding from the New Venture Competition at Central Michigan University last weekend.

We Inspire, led by BSEE senior Arick Davis, won the $10,000 Korson Family Highest Growth Potential Award. We Inspire is developing an online system and community to help students make informed career choices by connecting them with profiles and feedback from practicing professionals.

Superior Filament, led by Cedric Kennedy, Aubrey Woern and Jos Krugh, brought home a $10,000 Best Technology Award, as well as another $1,000 for Best Pitch and the $250 Audience Choice Award.

The student-run company is developing filment for 3-D printers from recycled plastics to support growth in the 3-D printing industry while reducing environmental impact.

Two other Michigan Tech teams participated in the annual entrepreneurial competition. TRU is developing a big data solution with proprietary algorithms to help performance athletes optimize performance through informed nutritional and dietary supplement choices.

Huskies 4 Hire is connecting students looking for short-term employment opportunities with community members seeking temporary employees.

The Pavlis Honors College helped sponsor the event financially. The student teams received support from Michigan Tech’s Innovation Center for Entrepreneurship, the School of Business and Economics and the MTEC SMartZone.

Original story by Jenn Donovan, Tech Today, 4/12/16

For more information see LinkedIn Pulse.

ECE announces MasterpiECE Mania winners

Published March 18, 2016

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MasterpiECE Mania first place team Physical Spectrum Analyzer by Matthew Linenfelser, Jerry Sommerfeld, Alex Herbst, and Matt Miller — MasterpiECE Mania first place project *Physical Spectrum Analyzer* by Matthew Linenfelser, Jerry Sommerfeld, Alex Herbst, and Matt Miller

There was electricity in the air last night at the MasterpiECE Mania student design competition hosted by the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and IEEE. 16 teams competed in the annual event with prizes going to the top three teams. Actually four, as the judges concluded a tie for third.

This year’s event was sponsored by Whirlpool Corporation with a generous gift of $2,000 to help support cash prizes, partial project supply reimbursal, event promotion, and a pasta buffet prior to the evening’s demonstrations to thank all the team members for their time and effort in their creative innovations.

Here are the results:

1st place, $500: Physical Spectrum Analyzer by Matthew Linenfelser, Jerry Sommerfeld, Alex Herbst, and Matt Miller
2nd place, $300: Automatic Resistor Sorter by Peter Gorecki
3rd place, $200 (ea): Midi Orchestra by Joe Halford; Internet Enabled LED Controller by Alex Simon and Pierce Jensen
Honorable mention: Arduino Uno Controlled Quadcopter by Cameron Burke; Rc Aircraft by Josh Gobrogge

A few details regarding the winning project: A spectrum analyzer is a device for analyzing a system of oscillations, especially sound, into its separate components. The “Winter Spectrum” uses small polystyrene particles and powerful fans to visualize an audio signal. Using a microprocessor (TI Tiva C Launchpad) the team was able to run a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) algorithm on an incoming line level audio signal. This separated the audio frequencies into “bins” which integer value represents the intensity of the certain frequency. Pulse width modulated (PWM) signals are fed to the fans under the acrylic enclosure. The beads then rise to the level that best represents the FFT frequency bin average.

MasterpiECE Mania began in 2009 with the goal of inciting creativity throughout the Michigan Tech community and fostering an appreciation for the ‘DIY’ aspect of modern electronics. Although the yearly MasterpiECE Mania competition is hosted by the Michigan Tech ECE department, it is open to all Michigan Tech Students regardless of major. This intra-disciplinary hack-a-thon competition challenges student to develop and build an electrical-based project that displays their skill and ingenuity.

Fridays with Fuhrmann: A heartfelt thank you!

Published March 1, 2016

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FWF_image-3_20160226 — L-R Front: ECE Chair Dr. Dan Fuhrmann, Prof. John Lukowski, recipients Casey Strom, Ester Buhl, and Lauren Clark. L-R Back: recipient Jonathan Schulz, Prof. Bruce Mork, recipients Dustin Hanes, Zachary Jensen, Troy Johnston, and Executive Vice President of Systems Control Brad Lebouef.

This week Michigan Tech made an announcement of a gift from ECE alumnus David Brule, Sr., in support of scholarships in the ECE Department. You can read all about it on the university daily news source “Tech Today“.

Dave Brule is a very good friend of Michigan Tech and of the ECE Department. He has supported a number of initiatives at the university, and while this is not done secretly or anonymously, to my knowledge none of the activities or facilities he has supported carry his name. For example, he was a major contributor to the Dennis Wiitanen Endowed Professorship in Electric Power Engineering, named in honor of a long-time and much-loved faculty member in the ECE Department. He recently funded the renovation of a plaza outside the library, named in honor of retired facilities manager John Rovano.

There are several reasons this is good news for the ECE Department. The first is of course the financial support that it provides for some of our most promising students. Beyond that, however, it serves as a good recruiting tool for the ECE Department, and it raises our visibility as a Department with a long history of excellence in undergraduate education in electrical power transmission and distribution. This is an area where there are significant workforce needs, now and anticipated in the near future. Indeed this is part of Dave’s motivation: to get more students interested in the utility power industry in general, and for Systems Control in particular. In order to attract students into the field, the ECE Department and its partners and friends need to do everything possible to raise awareness of the career opportunities, and to train students to be ready for those opportunities. Finally, I have to commend Dave for really raising the bar in terms of the philanthropic response to this workforce need. A lot of recruiters talk to me about tapping into our ECE talent pipeline, which is gratifying of course and along with Career Services I do everything I can to help them. Now we have a first-rate example of what it really takes to get the attention of students in today’s job market, and it is much more than anything I could ever do by myself.

Michigan Tech is very grateful to all its alumni, friends, and other donors for their philanthropic support of the university mission. It means the world to us. I encourage anyone with a possible interest in doing the same to get in touch – I’d love to talk to you.

– Dan

Daniel R. Fuhrmann

Dave House Professor and Chair

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Michigan Technological University

Follow ECE on Social Media

Published January 8, 2016

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The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) is now on Facebook and Twitter. Like and follow us for faculty spotlights, student accomplishments, outreach and events, industry and alumni news, and more; including a weekly post from the chair in “Fridays with Fuhrmann”. We hope you’ll add us to your social media picks.

Category: Awards

Annual Service Recognition Event